


Crate lemons

by Fox_Pause



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, Feels, Fluffy, Kid Fic, Lemons, Multi, POV Derek, Sassy Stiles Stilinski, Sheriff Stilinski Feels, Sick Character, Stiles doesn't understand morals, Stiles tries really hard, Teen Derek Hale, We'll get there, Young Stiles, just wants to help his mum, lemonade stand, neglectful Sheriff, sad fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-25 14:01:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4963411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fox_Pause/pseuds/Fox_Pause
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is sitting on his heels behind an upside-down crate, his messily made picture roughly taped to the front with what looks like Christmas tape. He’s smiling and yelling to an empty street- something about lemons. </p>
<p>or</p>
<p>The one that went from happy - sad in the blink of the eye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crate lemons

**Author's Note:**

> Alrighty. Lets get started, shall we? 
> 
> Stiles is around 6 and a half, and Derek is well, older. This is gonna get tragic real fast. So If you don't feel up to it, I don't blame you.

He can barely keep the growl spilling from his chest when he sees the little boy – Stiles- his name is Stiles, waltzing right into his –HIS front yard. He bares his teeth, silently hating his mother and alpha for banning him from leaving the house with the alpha command. He watches the boy as he stumbles over a large crack in the pavement, landing roughly on his knees. The boy doesn’t cry though, just dusts his knees off with clumsy, sticky hands and makes his way to the yard with even more determination than before.

 He watches as Stiles’ brown hair catches the morning suns rays, glinting as he stomps up to the lemon tree in the centre of the yard. He finds the lowest branch and with one leg swinging clumsily below him, he heaves himself up and into the tree.  The boy looks up into its highest branches and dappled leaves, and Derek can’t help thinking how small the massive tree makes the kid look. He can’t be more than 6, maybe 7 years old. Derek huffs, squinting to see just what the kid is up to. The kid, after looking around its branches some more, spots a lemon. He crawls his way through the branches towards his prize, small twigs nestling themselves in his brown hair as he goes. He plucks the fruit from the tree with a small struggle that almost sends him tumbling down, tucking the lemon safely into the pocket of his shorts before continuing onto the next one.

Eventually, Stiles worms his way from the tree, landing on the ground with a stumble that turns into a fall, cushioned only by the lemons bundled into his tee-shirt. He picks himself up and cradles the remaining lemons to his chest like they’re worth the world.

Derek knows the kid- Stiles- is only young and doesn’t quite have a good grip on the concept of stealing and basic morals yet, but he can’t help feeling overly protective of everything that’s his-including the lemon tree. He growls loudly at Stiles’ retreating form as if the boy can hear him, and stomps further into the house. He picks up the home phone with a scowl and hits the speed dial for his mum’s work. He catches her assistant on the third ring, perky as ever. 

 “…Hello! You’ve called T.H Lawyers, this is Natalia speaking. How can I help you today?”

 He can’t contain this eye roll. She’s always had this innate ability to piss him off with her ‘you can’t bring me down’ attitude. He grunts into the phone “Its Derek. Put mum on.”

 “Oh... Hey Derek! Your mum’s in a meeting right now, I can let her know you called after if you want?....Hello?... Dere-”

 “Just let her know.” He hangs up and tosses the phone onto the table with a bang and rubs at his face with the heel of his hand. He wishes his mum was here more often. He’s here alone so often, and ever since his little ‘control’ issue last month, he’s been on house arrest too.

When the clock finally reaches 1 in the afternoon, Derek is just finishing rainbow road on Mario kart for like, the forth time today, when he hears a high-pitched squealing from next door.

He runs to the front window and peels back the blinds, but can’t see over the Stillinski’s damn fence, so he races upstairs and into his bedroom as fast as his legs can carry him, peering down into what looks like the Stillinski’s kitchen. What he expects to find is some sort of struggle involving Stiles and an intruder.

What he finds however, is completely different. Stiles’ sitting at the dining table, sitting cross-legged on a stack of books piled high on a kitchen chair. His face is absolutely smeared with paint, vivid lines of blue, yellow and pink covering his splattering of moles that adorn his skin. He carefully dips his hands into the paint that’s smeared all over the table and begins to write. Or draw. To Derek, it all looks like weird, half-formed squiggly lines. Stiles writes with his fingers, squealing happily as the paint oozes between his fingers.  He writes big, illegible letters that overlap and break all over his paper, finishing it off with a handprint and a messily drawn ‘s’ that looks much more like a ‘z’. He holds it up to the light, tongue sticking out in deep concentration. He nods, pleased with the final product and heads deeper into the house.

 Derek’s never quite understood that kid. Always moving, babbling and squealing, even though he has two parents who love him. His mother especially. Claudia and Derek’s mother are very good friends, and every single time she’s dragged Stiles long, he’s somehow managed to drag Derek into his little games and make-belief.

 Its half an hour later when he hears Stiles hollering from the front yard.

 This time, Derek has to see what’s going on.

 Stiles is sitting on his heels behind an upside-down crate, his messily made picture roughly taped to the front with what looks like Christmas tape. He’s smiling and yelling to an empty street- something about lemons. And yes, now that Derek’s looking, he can see that piled neatly under the crate is Stiles’ haul from this morning, safely sheltered lemons –although majority aren’t in good condition. At all. Some are half squished from his earlier fall, and others are rotting in places.  Derek approaches Stiles as the elderly couple from across the road waddle their way across the quiet street to Stiles’ stall.

 “Oh, Hello dear. What a nice stall you have!” Stiles beams. She notices the lemons with a grimace “What.. Nice lemons you have there.”

 “YUP! I picked ‘em myself! Only 10c!” Derek blanches. This kid has no idea.

 The old lady beams at Stiles, pats him on the head. “Well, for that price, how could I say no?”

She gives Stiles the 10c gingerly, before and walking away, holding the rotting lemon an arms length away.

 Derek waits until she’s hearing distance away before he walks up to Stiles, who seems to be busily writing something down on a pad of paper.  Stiles looks up at him, but doesn’t stop writing. Derek crouches next to Stiles.

 “Hey Stiles.” Stiles glances to Derek and he gets a better look at what he’s writing. It looks a lot like stats, but between the messy strikes and awful handwriting, its awfully hard to tell.

 “Hey Derek.” Derek can’t help but laugh. This is the first time he’s seen Stiles this quiet and calm –besides naptime. Derek looks around, and catches sight of the Stillinski’s empty driveway.

 “Where’s your dad?” Stiles stills, takes a breath and answers with a whisper.

 “With mom”

 “Where’s your mum, Stiles?” Derek waits for Stiles to answer, but surprisingly he doesn’t. “Stiles?”

 Stiles doesn’t reply. Instead, he looks up at Derek, tears streaming down his face, trickling onto his lips and falling into his lap. He starts to hiccup, and before he knows it, he’s got a handful of a whimpering, sobbing Stiles.

 He hauls Stiles into his arms and holds him close, rubbing his back in soothing motions. He lifts Stiles, taking him into his house.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think peeps!


End file.
